


Where We Are Meant To Be

by cosmic_llin



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Culture, Coming of Age, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Long-Distance Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Other, Parenthood, Polyamory, Third Culture Kids, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirayoshi O'Brien knows that Aunt Nerys is his sometimes mommy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where We Are Meant To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Characters do not belong to me, I am making no profit.
> 
> OK, I have no idea where this came from but I plan to blame sophiegrace somehow.

Kirayoshi O'Brien is three years old, and he can hold up three fingers when he tells people. Three is how many people live with him – Mommy, Daddy, and Molly. Three is also the number of parents he has.

Yoshi understands that he has an every day mommy, and Aunt Nerys who is a sometimes mommy. That's ok, lots of the kids at daycare have some parents that are there all the time, and some that aren't. A few don't have parents at all. Some of them only have one, lots of them have two, some of them have three, and one boy (he's not a boy, he's a _thaan_ , but Yoshi doesn't always remember) has four.

So it doesn't bother him that when Aunt Nerys tells him his bedtime story, she tells it over the comm, and when he kisses her goodnight he has to kiss the monitor, and she kisses hers back. He knows he used to live inside her belly but he's too young to remember seeing her. There are pictures, though.

 

* * *

 

When Yoshi is eight, Daddy is off-planet for Starfleet and Mommy is offered a job somewhere that she can't take children. Aunt Nerys is between assignments and so he and Molly go and stay with her on Bajor for six whole months.

Molly spends the entire journey there telling Yoshi about Bajor – how pretty it is, how interesting it is, how much she misses it. She fidgets, and while she isn't telling Yoshi things she reads Bajoran art and politics magazines on her PADD so that she won't be out of the loop.

Yoshi isn't so sure he'll like it, and he's even a little shy when they first see Aunt Nerys – he's only met her a handful of times in person, that he can remember. But she hugs and kisses them both and they go and get jumja sticks on the way back to her apartment and Yoshi has a new bedroom and Aunt Nerys has decorated it especially for him and it's brilliant and he's so excited he knows he won't be able to sleep, except that he does, almost right away.

It's not that he doesn't miss Daddy and Mommy, but Aunt Nerys is just as good. Within a week Yoshi is dressing like the Bajoran boys at school and he's forgotten that he didn't always take mapa bread with him for the mid-morning snack break and offer prayers to the Prophets before class starts. (Aunt Nerys says he doesn't have to join in, but he likes to.) Aunt Nerys takes them to concerts and to museums, and he gets to visit a lot of places he's seen in the pictures she sends him. He hears names he recognises from her stories. She takes him on long walks to her favourite places and he tells her everything that comes into his head and she listens and asks questions.

Sometimes, when he can't be bothered to spell out O'Brien to people, he gives his Bajoran name, Kira Yoshi.

Molly seems unhappy, he notices sometimes. But then, Molly was grumpy before they left Earth. Daddy says it's because she's growing up and that Yoshi must be patient and not tease her. Sometimes she and Aunt Nerys have fights where they shout at one another, and once Molly throws a book out the window. Aunt Nerys makes her go and get it and gives her a long talk about being respectful. Molly looks pretty mad, but an hour or two after that Aunt Nerys is braiding her hair for her, so she can't have been _that_ mad.

Aunt Nerys teaches Molly to play springball. Molly's pretty good at it. Yoshi sees them and wants to learn to play too, so they teach him. He isn't good at it, but they keep trying anyway. He prefers it when Molly's out with her friends – Aunt Nerys is more patient then. When Molly's there sometimes Yoshi just watches them play, and it gets sort of boring.

Daddy and Mommy call them on the comm. Yoshi tells them about school and about exploring, and about how he's keeping things he found for them – a special stone, a dried flower. Molly tells them all sorts of things, if she's in a good mood. Aunt Nerys asks how work is and says they all miss them and love them and can't wait to see them, and Yoshi is being very good and Molly is doing very well in her art classes.

Aunt Nerys gives Molly a special earring. Yoshi wants one but Aunt Nerys says maybe when he's older. He doesn't talk to either of them for the entire afternoon.

The six months rush by and suddenly Yoshi is back on Earth, in their old apartment, with Mommy and Daddy and Molly and no Aunt Nerys except over the comm, for a goodnight chat now that he's too old for stories. He feels torn away, like he didn't when they left Earth. He cries sometimes, missing Bajor and Aunt Nerys, but he doesn't tell anybody.

Molly seems to know anyway, at least, she's nice to him and she helps him decorate his room with pictures of Bajor.

 

* * *

 

He sends Aunt Nerys a message every day, sometimes a vid and sometimes a letter. She always replies, even if it's only a quick note to say that she loves him and that she'll reply properly soon. She's very busy, he knows, so he cherishes everything she sends, watches and reads her messages repeatedly until the next one arrives.

 

* * *

 

They go to the Gratitude Festival every year – sometimes on Bajor, more often on Earth. Lots of Bajorans live on Earth, and they gather for the festival if they can’t make it home in time.

The year Yoshi is ten, he’s considered old enough to write his own renewal scroll and put it into the fire himself. He thinks for a long time about it. He doesn’t really have any troubles. Apart from missing Aunt Nerys sometimes, but he heard her say once that the Prophets send us where we are meant to be, so he figures that she’ll be there if he ever really needs her, and in the meantime they have long, satisfying talks over subspace.

So he holds his pencil over the paper for a long time – none of his other troubles seem important enough – he’s not that good at sport or math and he’s not allowed to go out to the public holosuites without an adult present, but those aren’t really problems. He’s happy enough.

In the end he just burns the blank page, and hopes the Prophets will understand if he has any problems later. The four of them burn their scrolls together, holding hands in a row, he then Mom then Dad then Molly. They all miss Aunt Nerys, but being at the Gratitude Festival is a little like being with her, and they feel welcome and included when the Bajoran families they see at the festival every year smile and wave at them. Afterwards they go and have dinner together in one of their favourite restaurants. He writes Aunt Nerys a long letter about it, being careful to put in all the funny things Mom said and how Dad still can't use chopsticks very well and exactly what they all ate.

 

* * *

 

Yoshi's thirteen when Aunt Nerys comes to live with them. She's teaching at Starfleet Academy for a year. He prepares for her arrival anxiously, makes everything perfect for her. He's been baking a lot lately – he bakes flapjacks for her, and chocolate chip cookies. He makes sure Mom and Dad clear a drawer for her in the dresser in the bedroom. He tweaks the replicator settings for her favourite foods to make sure they come out how she likes them. Molly yells at him when her hasperat comes out extra-spicy.

When she arrives they all have dinner together and they talk and talk and talk and he's allowed to stay up as long as he likes. He fights to stay awake long after Molly has kissed them all goodnight and gone to bed. He only goes to bed when Aunt Nerys starts to yawn and he knows he won't miss any more interesting conversation. The adults drift off to their room and he goes to his, but he hears them awake still for a while, talking and laughing.

He and Aunt Nerys start their walks again – this time he gets to show her around, and when he's with her he's allowed to go anywhere within transporter range, so they visit cities all over Earth. His favourite is St Petersburg, some of the architecture reminds him of things he saw on Bajor. He and Aunt Nerys stand on the Anichkov Bridge for hours and watch the boats on the Fontanka, and visit the churches. She's fascinated by Earth religions, even though it's difficult for her to understand gods that never show themselves.

They don't walk every day, though. Aunt Nerys is very busy, in a way that she wasn't back on Bajor. She's in San Francisco all day most days, and often she's out in the evenings, sometimes with old friends, sometimes with Mom or Dad or both. Even when they're at home she doesn't always have time to spend with Yoshi – she's preparing for her classes or she and Dad are reminiscing about the war, or she and Mom are curled up together on the couch listening to music, or she and Molly are discussing art schools.

Art school is the final straw. Molly has decided to go on Bajor, and she'll stay in Aunt Nerys' apartment. Yoshi asks why  _he_ can't go back and live on Bajor, and Aunt Nerys says maybe when he's older and Dad explains that there won't always be someone in the apartment to take care of him, and it's not fair to make Molly responsible for him. He tells them that he can take care of himself, he doesn't need anyone to be responsible for him. Mom asks, doesn't he want to live with them any more?

Yoshi regrets what he says right away, but once he's run out of the house and gone to the transporter hub and gone to the furthest place he can think of, it's too late to just take it back.

Aunt Nerys finds him on the Anichkov Bridge. He's throwing stones into the water.

'You want to tell me what your problem is?' she asks, leaning on the bridge beside him.

Yoshi hunches his shoulders at her, a barely perceptible shrug, but doesn't look up.

'Fine, I can wait it out,' Aunt Nerys says, settling a little.

And she does, she just looks out calmly at the water, as if she's lost in her own thoughts. Yoshi waits for her to get impatient and yell at him, but of course she doesn't. She never backs down. He knows he ought to just talk to her and get it over with, but it's a while before he can fight off his anger and disappointment enough to begin.

'Molly gets to go to Bajor,' he begins, and stops, realising how whiny it sounds.

She straightens up, looks at him. 'Molly does not 'get' to go to Bajor,' she says. 'Molly worked very hard for the opportunity to study at the Bajoran Institute of Art. There's nothing to stop you applying to school on Bajor too when you're a little older.'

'I know that!' he says.

She looks evenly at him, waits for him to continue.

'I don't know!' he tells her. 'It's just... I miss Bajor, and I miss you, and lately it seems like you never spend any time with me, you're always at work or you and Mom and Dad are spending time together, and I just... I don't know... it used to feel like Bajor was our special place, and that I was special to you, and lately...'

He's trying to be angry but suddenly a tear rolls down his face. She sighs, and smiles at him.

'Oh, Yoshi,' she ruffles his hair. 'Of course you're special. You'll always be incredibly special to me. The months that I carried you inside me were some of the most precious of my life, and I feel that we'll always have a wonderful, unique connection because of that time. But Yoshi, love isn't something you can run out of. You love your mother and father and Molly and I all in different ways, don't you? Well, I love your mother and father both very much, but differently to how they love one another. And I love Molly differently than I love you.'

He nods grudgingly.

'And as for Bajor,' she says. 'Well... you were born to the sound of a Bajoran cabasa, on a Bajoran space station, at the mouth of the Celestial Temple. Bajor is part of you, and always will be. You don't need to worry about that.'

He manages a smile. 'Thanks, Aunt Nerys,' he says.

'I've been waiting for the right moment to give you this,' she continues, reaching into her jacket pocket for something.

It's an earring, like the one she wears.

'It represents my d'jarra, and my family,' she says. 'You are part of my family, and you are part of Bajor, and you always will be, Kira Yoshi O'Brien.'

She puts the earring on him, and stands back, her hands on his shoulders, to admire him.

'When did you get so grown up?' she asks.

He grins at her.

'Let's go home?' she suggests.

He nods, she puts her arm around his shoulder, and they walk back to the transporter hub.


End file.
